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Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan and his son Chirag Paswan on Friday held discussions with Union Minister Arun Jaitley over seat-sharing arrangements in Bihar for the Lok Sabha elections 2019.
A day before LJP leaders met BJP president Amit Shah. They shared their concerns over the delay in holding talks over the seat sharing issue.
Talks would move in the right direction, hoped Chirag Paswan after meeting with Jaitley. The LJP wanted to contest six Lok Sabha seats in Bihar and has been asking for a Rajya Sabha seat, said sources.
"Talks are going on. An announcement will be made at an appropriate time. We have put our points before the BJP leadership and the important thing is that we are being heard. Hope everything will be fine," he told reporters.
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Sources in the BJP said a final arrangement of seats would be formalised after a meeting of the BJP and LJP leaders with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is in Delhi.
A Bharatiya Janata Party leader also claimed that talks were going on in the right direction and everything will be finalised soon.
In Bihar, in the last Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had contested from 30 seats and won 22, while the LJP won six seats and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP), which is now a part of Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance), bagged three.
In 2014, the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) had contested on its own but performed poorly. It had won only two seats.
On Thursday, BJP leader and Bihar in-charge Bhupendra Yadav first went to meet Chirag and Ram Vilas Paswan and the three leaders later went to the residence of Amit Shah. They were joined there by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
The BJP and the Nitish Kumar-led JD-U had declared earlier that they would contest an equal number of seats in Bihar in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
(With inputs from IANS)
